


Portrait of a Man in Chrome

by bluescat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Chronic Pain, Family Drama, M/M, Mentions of Terrorism, Painter Steve, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Strangers to Lovers, physical therapist Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28179897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluescat/pseuds/bluescat
Summary: Dear Mr Rogers,Right from the beginning I’d like to apologize for the suddenness of this message – your address has been given to me by a mutual acquaintance who greatly praised your work and suggested contacting you if we find it suiting our needs. Having familiarized our eyes with your art (Brooklyn Museum’s most recent temporary exhibition has been truly brilliant, please accept our congratulations on it), I believe your style and talent would be perfect to meet our desires and we’d be more than happy to discuss in detail a commission for a series of paintings. As we need someone willing to dedicate quite a lot of time to the task and work in the field (which would be our humble house), please do think over whether you’re available and willing to make the commitment, and let me know whether you’d like to know more about the proposition.Thank you for your time,Winifred Barnes*In which Steve, a rising freelance artist, is commissioned for a one-of-a-kind portrait and Bucky becomes his involuntary muse.(Inspired by a 2019 movie, "Portrait of a Lady on Fire".)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 64
Collections: Not Another Stucky Big Bang 2020





	Portrait of a Man in Chrome

**Author's Note:**

> Written for NASBB 2020, in collaboration with two wonderful artists: Quinn (munin_and_hugin@Twitter) and Danni (Sporadic_fics@Twitter), who created amazing pieces based on my humble little story. Thank you both for choosing my entry out of the bunch – it means the world to me!
> 
> Also thank you to Mel for believing in me being able to drag this fic past the finish line even when I didn't believe in it myself.

[by munin_and_hugin@Twitter]

_Dear Mr Rogers,_

_Right from the beginning I’d like to apologize for the suddenness of this message – your address has been given to me by a mutual acquaintance who greatly praised your work and suggested contacting you if we find it suiting our needs. Having familiarized our eyes with your art (Brooklyn Museum’s most recent temporary exhibition has been truly brilliant, please accept our congratulations on it), I believe your style and talent would be perfect to meet our desires and we’d be more than happy to discuss in detail a commission for a series of paintings. As we need someone willing to dedicate quite a lot of time to the task and work in the field (which would be our humble house), please do think over whether you’re available and willing to make the commitment, and let me know whether you’d like to know more about the proposition._

_Thank you for your time,_

_Winifred Barnes_

*

When Steve first reads the email, it already dates all the way back to three days ago.

Admittedly, it’s not because Steve is _so_ busy that he doesn’t have the time to check his inbox regularly, rather than he’s terrible at the logistic side of being a half-self-employed freelance artist. Sometimes he thinks that if he could afford it, he’d definitely invest in a private secretary, but every time such idea sparks in his head, he very quickly realizes that his natural stubbornness and control freak-ism wouldn’t allow for a healthy work relationship in such set up. That’s why, years and countless of late replies to work correspondence later, he still resorts to dealing with himself appearing slightly too aloof to perhaps be put trust (and money) in, rather than reaching out for help.

He doesn’t feel overly bad in this particular case though. The email from one Winifred Barnes reads as something way too vague and mysterious to be considered as serious in the first place, so Steve believes that his hesitance in responding—even if it is, in fact, false—is well founded and rather justified.

Not only Steve has absolutely no clue who _Winifred Barnes_ is, she also speaks in what appears to be riddles and of some mysterious _we_ , not once specifying who she means. Has there actually been someone next to her typing it all out or does she have some split-personality thing going on and Steve would be walking right into the jaws of a potentially uncomfortable—potentially _dangerous_ —situation?

Then there is also the equally mysterious _mutual acquaintance_ — who in the world could that be? There are very few people who Steve thinks would ever bother praising his work to potential buyers or commissioners and at least half of them—namely his friends—would certainly not do it in a professional enough manner to provoke such e-mail. And lastly, the way the person (people?) described and underlined the commission as a _commitment_ , as if Steve would be signing his literal soul to some art-craving devil, is more than strangely curious.

So, all in all, three days is not bad to mull the enigmatic proposition over — even if he plans on responding to it and agreeing pretty much right after seeing it for the first time. And it’s not that he’s _not_ worried about the oddity of it all. It’s just that he needs this: the opportunity, the money and the connection alike, the needs weighing significantly more than any concerns that may hold him back.

Besides, he’s just curious. To his mother’s never-ending laments, Steve’s always been the kind of a kid who fearlessly put his hands in random places: hollowed tree trunks, seemingly abandoned hives, sweets machine pockets, much stronger boys’ mugs — you name it, he’s done it; and while he may have grown up enough to know not to stick his fingers everywhere he sees the opportunity to, that old childish curiosity morphed into something else, pushing him to do things that other people’s senses would probably tell them to let go of before any mess can occur.

Pulling his legs down from the desk in a movement sudden enough that causes him to regret this brief moment of comfort, back stiff and its lower muscles pulled in that terribly painful way that he knows he’ll need another hour or two to forget about, he settles in his chair and puts his laptop on the desktop. Fingers flying across the keyboard, Steve realizes with a dose of humor that the whole thing reads more like a letter sent sometime in 1940s rather a modern-day email — and that probably says quite a lot about his commissioners. Then again, Steve himself is a classical painter in the times when majority of his peers are running around with iPads and creating digital art on the go, so maybe they are just the right kind of people to collaborate together. With that thought in mind, he feels much more reassured about his spurt of the moment decision and once he puts the final dot and signs the email with his name, there’s not a part of him that wants to back out of it.

*

Although Steve likes to think of himself as a free-roaming adventurous soul, the fact is that he’s a creature of habit. His paths may be many but they’re more or less fixed, tied together and creating a rather repetitive web of Steve’s life.

The starting and focal point is always his one-bedroom apartment in Crown Heights, located at the top third floor of a classic brownstone. It’s an absolute bitch to climb with his periodic asthma but the natural light coming in through the high windows of both the bedroom and the living room is more than worth it. From there, the web threads spread in an orb all across the neighborhood: Two Saints on Norstrand Ave where Sharon always drags him to because she gets a permanent fifty off on all the coctails neither of them ever remember the names of while leaving, Brooklyn Museum – the place without which Steve wouldn’t have some of his most steady sources of income nor half of the contacts within New York’s artistic industry, Awoke Vintage on North 5th where Steve is constantly manipulated into becoming an accessory (recently upgraded from a background) to another pricelessly vintage piece in Wanda’s store. All the pigeons in Prospect Park can probably already recognize him from a mile away, considering how often he fishes there for inspiration, and Lou from the bodega just around the corner for a few months now has been sacrificing his own revenue for the sake of scolding Steve to go and cook some actual food instead of coming by for his overpriced sandwiches nearly daily.

And it’s not that Steve doesn’t venture out, try new things, go new places. He does, he just—likes coming back to what he already knows and feels safe with. There’s a reason why he’s lived in Brooklyn his whole life, why he keeps just a handful of close friends and why changing his mind on about anything in the world is a herculean task that nobody who really knows him tries to engage in anymore.

So when an hour after leaving his apartment Steve’s still only halfway through to the address on Staten Island that he has hastily noted down on a piece of coal-smudged paper, courtesy of his latest project, he’s somehow both excited and already thinking that perhaps this has been a bad idea. Pushing one’s comfort zones is all fine and good but this turns out to be en entire journey, which—if the deal is sealed—he’ll go through repeatedly over the course of what’s most likely weeks, accompanied by at least two armfuls of painting supplies.

Times like these, Steve really regrets not getting a driver’s license to drive his own car—his principles about the fight for ecology and carbon footprints be damned—or a better set of lungs that allows him to cycle farther than the nearby park without coughing out his insides, for that matter. Which, he does realize that one is not like the other in terms of possibility, but with how passionate he is about his ethics, it might as well be just as unthinkable.

When he finally reaches the green-lined street of Guyon Ave, he’s slightly in awe of the houses and gardens that stretch across its area. It’s a strange mismatch of architectonic styles, as if every person wanted to be even more distinctive than the next one, the entire neighborhood obsessed with not falling in line (something that Steve can personally relate to all too easily), but it’s also incredibly charming in its own way. Sure, the gothic style facades next to the good old american porches might have looked slightly off, but the so very obvious amount of attention to details and love these people have for their houses and lands is too great to be dismissed.

It might be the slightly sentimental part of Steve’s being speaking too — his mother had always spoke of wanting to own a house, of the way she’d have liked it to look, where it’d have been located, what kind of flowers would she have grown in the backyard garden and which would have greeted the guests out front. And while Steve didn't understand it fully at the time, it’s now, years later, one of the memories that stay the closest to his heart, often translated through brush strokes onto canvas, in the shapes of flowers and houses and forests over the lakes.

He’s not sure whether he loves the idea of owning and caring for the house just because it’s so tightly connected with his late mother or if it’s actually his desire — but he entertains it anyway, the idea a part of his being at this point, as he's taking his time strolling down the street even at the risk of being late to his meeting.

When he finally reaches number 222 and stops at the front gate he has to take a step back, tilt his head up and crane his neck a bit to allow himself to take the entire place in. The land is big—not obscenely so, but bigger than anything Steve may have imagined—and so is the house, impressive not only in its size but style too, with many decorative nooks and crannies and details visible right at first sight, and probably thrice as many hiding once you take your time to observe it. It's a bit as if a Disney fairytale and an American classic had a baby, and Steve is amazed by it in at least two different ways.

Pushing past the open gate, he makes his way across the cobblestone pathway, so decorative and precise that this alone tells any visitor who pays enough attention all about how loved and cared for this place is. It tugs some particular strings in Steve's heart – a new, warm feeling joining the overwhelming curiosity and excitement that has brought him here in the first place, and it's with that mixture of emotions that he rings the doorbell, standing at the front porch and fixing the strap of his bag, heavy with the sizable portfolio and samples of some of his works, ready to woo his commissioners should the need for it arise.

It's also with those same emotions, mingling at the back of his mind, that he looks at the woman appearing at the treshold. She's clearly past her prime years, yet nowhere near the end of her path, if the energy with which she pulls the door open is anything to go by; it's mostly in her smile, crinkling both the edges of her mouth and eyes, that tells him all about the life experience she has already accumulated, but also the eagerness to still acquire twice as much.

In a strange, bittersweet way, she reminds Steve of his own mother.

"Ah, you must be Steve Rogers," she says before Steve even manages to open his mouth. "Do come in, please—I hope finding our humble abode has not been too much of a problem to you."

It feels slightly awkward to Steve, the woman being one step ahead of him at every turn, making it hard for him to squeeze in any of the polite pleasantries that he knows should be expected of him. In the end, he finds himself first stepping inside the house, giving up his jacket and accepting apologies about _all the mess, it's so hard to keep the house of four clean at this age_ —even though he's oddly certain he'd find not a speck of dust, even if he tried his hardest to look for it—before he finally manages to sneak in a proper greeting of his own.

"Mrs Barnes, I assume? It's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for the invitation," Opting for a small bow ends up slightly awkward, as the woman already presses a gentle hand to his back and steers him forward inside the house, its warmth and scents coming from what he can only guess is the kitchen being more inviting than some of his favorite guilty-pleasure cafes by the Washington Ave.

"Likewise, young man. We are very excited to meet you and even more so to work with you—hopefully," she flashes him a kind, slightly wicked smile, the sort of mischievous expression that only people at certain age are capable of, Steve finds, and one that, in all honesty, scares Steve a bit. Kids and elder people are equally unpredictable to him, and as he tends to generally avoid both, he hasn't had too much chances to get used to either of them. For all he knows, the whole idea of this work opportunity being too good to be true and being lured into a potential murder situation is not that absurd, given the most recent development.

Except, within the next few minutes he meets the mysterious _we_ mentioned in the email: a man of age clearly similar to the woman's, introduced as _George, the less art-knowledgable but no less passionate husband,_ who proceeds to give him a grand tour of the house as Winifred disappears in what she claims to be the kitchen – and with each next passing minute, the murder scenario becomes less and less probable. As they make their way through the main living space, halls and even bathrooms, each next room even more cluttered with various pieces of art than the previous one, it becomes glaringly obvious to Steve that what he's up against here is just a very rich, very art-oriented family who happens to have a lot of space to put up paintings, sculptures and trinkets of all kinds. And while all together, they may not be very coherent stylistically and some of the more impressive pieces are definitely not exposed enough and drowning in the general clutter—at least in Steve's eyes—it all has incredible charm to it, a one-of-a-kind feel that is undeniable and, thankfully, does not ring off any warning bells for potential threats.

*

"The house has been with our family for generations—built in 1890s, you see, it's gone through quite a few renovations and additions, but we've always tried to make sure it retains the spirit of our ancestors. It may seem overly sentimental to today's generations, but family is important to us."

"Mine has never had a house of their own," Steve says, trying to remain as polite and tactful as he possibly can, "but I can definitely understand the sentiment, Mrs Barnes. And the house itself is wonderful. Very interesting architecture."

There may have been many things he expected upon coming here, but getting to know what he believes to be at least half of the Barnes family complete history over a three-course home-cooked dinner has been very close to the extreme end of that list. It's not that he's complaining, not really; Winifred is an amazing cook and the kind of warm but resolute woman who consistently reminds him of his own mother, while George is a calm, protective, looming presence that oversees every conversation, every movement around his family. The awkward, business part of it all aside, Steve feels like he's meeting with a long lost, estranged part of his own family, getting to know some people he may share a drop or two of blood with but hasn't ever seen apart from a single family gathering sometime when he was three. If he'd be any less aware of the lack of his actual family ties, he might even believe it to be true.

When a fourth person appears in the picture, somewhere between the second course and dessert, stomping into it with a pair of heavy boots and a faux leather jacket, all girly charm and a tomboyish smile, Steve isn't even that surprised anymore, deciding that it's in his best interest to be prepared for everything at this point. Winifred introduces her as _Rebecca, our youngest,_ with that sort of special motherly pride in her voice, to which the newcomer rolls her eyes a bit and regards Steve with the undisguised kind of curiosity of someone who has just barely crossed the line of adulthood.

"It's Becca, to friends and family," she says eventually, after what appears to be a thorough enough assessment to consider Steve, for whatever reason, as worthy to fall somewhere on that personal spectrum.

"Nice to meet you, _Becca_."

"So," she starts, taking a spot by the table, a flurry or chocolate brown hair and some muave tones of a frilly dress, a stark contrast to her overall style that Steve becomes immediately fond of. She reaches out for one of the dessert plates and helps herself to a piece of cheesecake, proceeding to casually pick raisins out of it. "Have you told Steve about Bucky already?"

The uneasy silence that follows is an answer enough, and yet it leaves Steve with plenty of new questions. Who's Bucky? While he recognized Becca right away, the familiarity to the portrait in the living room unmistakable, he doesn't recall seeing any other person that could possibly bear that name. A family dog then, perhaps?

" _James,_ " says George at one point, in a patient but grave tone of voice, as if he's invoking a memory he'd rather forget. James does not sound like a dog name anymore.

"Yes," Winifred nods her head, her mostly grey hair that still has some traces of blonde in it bouncing lightly with the movement, "James is Rebecca's older brother."

Oh, so alive then. Steve doesn't even take notice of the sigh of relief until it's already out of his lips.

He doesn't know yet that it is _James_ who will become the very center of his upcoming weeks.

"You have to understand, Steve—and I apologize if this comes as too forward and sudden, but there's no easy way or the right time to say it all—it's been one hell of year for this family. Have you heard of last year's attack on the Manhattan VA Medical Center?"

Although his first involuntary reaction is a small grimace that crinkles the patch of skin between his eyebrows, confused as to why it's being brought up, of all things, Steve nods his head in affirmation, his entire attention focused on the woman's words. The otherwise silence all around if nearly eerie, as if everyone stopped breathing and the clock ceased to tick away the time, mindful of the situation's gravity.

"James is—used to be—a physical therapist there, working on his specialization within the neurological field. Such a good boy, always wanted to help people. He got hurt that day. Badly," the breath she takes is a bit shaky, and it may have been well over a year since it happened, if Steve recalls the date correctly, but in this moment it seems as if it's just mere days that have passed for Winifred since then.

"His injuries were a lot, left him with many scars, and he's not been the same, ever since. Not to worry—he's so much better now," she hurries to say, and if Steve said that it sounded like she needed to reassure herself more than anyone else, he probably wouldn't be that far off the truth. It certainly didn't _sound_ like he's that much better, didn't _look_ like it either, judging by the distressed expression hiding in his mother's eyes.

When Steve raises his gaze to look across the table, the way Rebecca winces and then glares at her piece of cake is quite telling too. Unless she _really_ hates raisins this much, her brother's condition and the entire situation can't be too easy on her either, and Steve, even though he's never been anything but the only child and can't possibly know anything about the relationship between these two siblings, feels for her.

"I'm sorry for what you've had to go through," Steve ends up saying, his heart heavy with the tragedy that this kind, welcoming family must've gone through.

"Oh, don't be," Winifred says, her lips pulling in a smile that looks tight but still as sincere as ever, "He may have lost his arm, confidence and got a lot of scars in return, but he's alive. That's the most important thing."

There is a part of Steve, an ugly part that he knows is so inappropriate and way off the line, that wants to argue this statement – someone who worked with their hands and bet their entire professional career on them, _a healer_ , surely would not accept the loss of an arm as easily. Suddenly, the grim expression on Rebecca's face makes even more sense now.

"I'm sure that you'll understand it when I say that it became even more important than before for us to have James's portrait done. There have always been this or that holding us back from going through with it—but it's time now."

Steve's gaze follows Winifred as she stands up and moves across the room to pick up a book. From between the pages, she slips out a single photo—silently, Steve marvels at the idea that people still keep printed photos in their homes—and hands it to him once she sits back down by the table, now even closer to Steve than before, as if she's about to share some kind of a secret with him.

And a secret it is: the photo is slightly blurry, as if taken quickly and without permission, no time for adjusting the settings or the light or figuring out how to frame the scene. There's a man in the left half of it, his head in a half-profile position, showing his sharp jawline and strong cheekbones and carefully grown facial hair that are just long enough to recognize it as someone trying to hide something. There are scars lining his face and neck, but the photo is not sharp enough for Steve to really make them out, and if he hasn't already known, he'd never be able to tell that there's a missing arm underneath that baby blue jean jacket.

James is, _objectively_ , extremely good looking and he suspects that all these wounds and scars may only further accentuate his strong features. Somewhere deep within, Steve gets excited at the prospect of painting him, this surely having to be one of the most distinct faces he's ever had the chance to portray. But then—then Winifred speaks up again.

"Should you agree to this additional task, we'd like you to paint him without all the unnecessary imprints of the trauma he's gone through. No scars, no missing limbs and prosthetics, no grief and sadness. James—you see, he struggles with his image now. He tries to hide it, but I'm his mother, so of course I know he does, and I just think—it may help him. To be portrayed and remembered as his best self."

She's so incredibly gentle in the way she speaks about her son, so caring and warm, and yet Steve's heart drops at the idea of erasing all of a person's struggle, their whole current identity, just for the sake of remaining int he comfortable bubble of the past. Against himself, he dislikes Winifred a bit in this very moment, dislikes how selfish she seems and how disregarding of her son's actual feelings she may be.

But then he realizes — this is not his trauma. Not his family, not his son, not his struggle. What right does he have to judge other people's way of coping, not knowing either them or what they've had to go through?

He turns the photo over and over in his long, slightly crooked fingers, feeling the tension cling to him like sweat on a hot and humid mid-summer day. He's disappointed, annoyed and angry, but also confused and, against all the odds and his own personal beliefs, still somehow excited. Whether it's the opportunity, financial and professional alike, or the handsome, distinctive face seemingly dodging his gaze on purpose in the photo, Steve _wants_ to do it.

"You must also paint him without him knowing," she says in a tone of voice so serious and tight that there’s no doubt of it carrying any traces of jest – something that Steve would definitely assume otherwise, with how many hoops she's already threw him over the past thirty or so minutes. "James has never been interested in posing for a portrait and I can’t imagine it’d be any different now— _especially_ now."

It’s the heavy sounding emotion that curls around the edges of the initial seriousness that once again prevents Steve from commenting on the idea in any way. He can feel that there’s desperation there—the farther they go the more of it—that it’s a decision which did not come lightly and must stand for more than a simple whim of a perhaps slightly too rich, too entitled family. He can see it in the sadness pooling in the woman’s eyes – the kind of emotional ache that hides in their very corners, one that’s already well-known and accustomed to, a constant part of one’s being rather than a wave that comes and goes. Steve knows this feeling all too well himself.

He has never paid this much attention and care to stirring a cup of tea, finding that putting the focus on it at least gives him a few more moments needed to digest this new information.

Steve doesn't need to look at Winifred to know that the troubled sigh that escapes her is accompanied by at least a dozen of worried lines appearing on her face. "I do understand that this is not how portraiture usually works and the results may vary but I’m going to insist on you giving it a try, Steve. Please, lend us your talent and commemorate our son at his best on your canvas.”

And it’s crazy because against his better judgment, despite multiple doubts he has, the pleading tone of a mother, the morbidly quiet father, the gorgeous house on Guyon Ave and the one of a kind offer pull the worst kind of curiosity out of him. Mixed with natural competitiveness that usually manifests itself in the face of a presented challenge—the more absurd and impossible the better—Steve finds himself saying:

“I’ll do it."

*

Coming back to 222 Guyon Ave three days later to finalize the deal and conceptualize the series of paintings of the house feels to Steve like an odd mixture of your classic walk of shame and a really bad hangover.

Even as he was working on his other gigs, the museum work and a smaller project he's signed up for even before receiving Mrs Barnes's email, he could not get that pretty house with a pretty family going through horrible things out of his mind. He could not wipe that one blurry photo away from his memory, his very unhelpful brain coming up with at least a dozen different ways the man, captured in that moment, could look up at him and see the myriad of strange feelings painting itself on his face as he stares at him. The artist's imagination tends to be a blessing as often as it sometimes is a curse, Steve is reminded once again, tossing and turning in his bed for three nights in a row, until he finally gets to satisfy whatever monster took its new residence in his head.

The weather is slightly gloomier than on his first visit, which he's thankful for, as it allows him to see the neighborhood and the subject—one of them, at least—of his paintings in a new light, literally and metaphorically. Armed with a sizable cup of delicious herbal and citrus tea, Steve takes his time to walk around the house's perimeter, again and again, each lap allowing him to see yet another interesting angle, a few more details, some particularities that signify all the years this house has withstood, all the people it has given shelter to.

It's been a long time since he could focus on something with this much soul and personality to inspire his canvases.

By the time the remnants of his tea get cold and the heavy clouds above his head stop being merely threatening and start to actually be bothersome with the relatively gentle downpour, Steve has a handful of sketches hastily outlined in his trusty, old leather-bound notebook. He snaps it close just in time to prevent too much moisture getting on the pages and jogs slowly towards the back-stairs of the wrap-around porch, definitely one of the more charming features of the entire house.

Already under the dry safety of the roof, feet scuffing across the wooden panels, Steve's too busy wiping water off the black textured leather cover with the sleeve of his jacket to notice another person making for a much more energized jog, probably at the end of a much longer running distance than his. They end up colliding in this awkward way where it's as if they needed just two or three more inches to miss each other entirely, bumping with just the sides of their bodies. The impact is not overly strong, so Steve manages to catch his balance just fine, even if the smack against his arm is particularly bruising, as if he ran into a brick wall shoulder-first.

"Sorry," Steve hears before he even manages to react in any way, a low and coarse voice, just slightly out of breath, "Water all in my face, didn't notice you."

Water in his face it is, Steve agrees, raising gaze just in time to see the man swipe drops of rain away with the sleeve of his shirt, pulled from under the jacket with nimble fingers.

And _oh,_ he knows this face.

Except it's not blurry this time, not half-imagination, not a dirty little secret of spying on someone unaware of the attention they're being given. It's sharp and in as high of a definition as Steve's eyes only allow it to be – which is pretty damn high, considering his twenty-twenty vision. There are way more scars than he ever imagined, some bigger than others, and probably even more that are concealed somehow, be it hair, clothes or the angle. There's also tension here, one that pulls this face into a stone-looking mask, and it takes Steve a while to realize that it grows in intensity the longer he outright stares at him like an absolute insensitive idiot.

 _Way to go, Steven Grant Rogers._ Way to go.

"It's no problem—was my fault, too," he says eventually, "Too busy making sure work didn't suffer from the downpour," he raps his fingers against the notebook's cover twice before pushing it under his arm, as if getting ready for the potential greeting, a quick shake of hands—anything, really.

It doesn't come. Neither does what he's been visualizing for three long days, the stranger's gaze picking up and shifting towards him, making the connection. There's no smile that would accompany it, or surprise, or anger, or any of the other possible scenarios that painted itself inside of Steve's head. Quite the opposite, James seem to be extremely careful about avoiding facing him and looking at him at all, and if Steve wasn't an empath at heart and didn't already know so much about him, he'd probably take this personally.

Instead, he accepts it, unable to find it in himself to force the interaction – even if it means the more secretive part of his commission becomes incredibly difficult because of it.

"You're the painter," the man says with a bit of wonder in his voice, as if it only now occurred to him who this strange person walking along his porch is. Stepping through the threshold of the front door, he holds it open for Steve to follow.

"Yeah, Steve—Steve Rogers."

A soft hum, somewhere between him kicking off his wet shoes and shrugging off the jacket, all the while extremely meticulous in keeping his back to Steve the entire time. "Mother mentioned you'll be working around here for the next few weeks. I'm Bucky—feel free to let me know if you ever need anything."

"Thanks," Steve responds automatically, even though the offer seemed like one of those rehearsed things you say to someone to remain polite, yet not really meaning it. Somehow, Steve is sure that James— _Bucky_ —would absolutely loathe being asked for anything by Steve.

Somehow, he also thinks Bucky doesn't mean to share his nickname just with _friends and family_ like his sister does, his vote of confidence clearly not earned quite as easily as Becca's.

He's gone before Steve can think of anything else to say to him.

*

This is how their interactions, given that they happen at all, look like for the next few days. Steve goes from accepting and patient, through slightly frustrated and perhaps even hurt, to absolutely worried and agonizing over the future of this entire project. While his commissioner has explicitly stated that he just needs to _do his best_ and is aware that the results may vary, Steve is not sure he can produce anything of a remotely good quality if he never has a chance to actually _see_ the face of the person he ought to paint.

It may or may not sting something particular inside of him on a personal level, too.

Steve isn't the social butterfly kind of person by no means. Like most artists, he's a bit of a recluse, living inside of his head for the most part of the days and once he finally gets out of it and realizes how much time has passed in the real world, it's kind of hard to make the connection again. Still, he usually does his best to make the effort, even if that effort ends up in way too many awkward social situations that he'd like it to.

To have it mostly ignored is—hurtful, in a way. A kick to his pride. A cold shower to dampen his expectations.

He _knows_ it's most likely not personal. The guy has had it rough the past year and Steve entering the picture now, of all times, does not change anything. He knows and yet, that strangely sensitive part of him that he generally dislikes but people close to him claim to be one of his personality's best aspects, just can't simply dismiss it.

"At this point I'll have to purposefully slow down on the main project to give myself even the smallest chance to actually paint the portrait," Steve complains in the phone, holding it between his ear and shoulder as he sifts through loose sketches he has done over the past few days. He feels like a kid trying to sneakily skip school when he does that – catching a glimpse of Bucky whenever he can and then using the first possible chance to quickly draw him on whatever piece of paper is the closest. That's how he ends up with a frankly ridiculous number of torn pages with messy sketches of jawlines and lips and the back or the profile of a silhouette, kept hidden away and only looked at once he gets home, like some kind of an immoral kink he can't afford to reveal to anyone.

Sharon's laughter cuts through the steady background noise of some music and rustling of papers, probably working overtime again. "But you did say that the neighborhood is pretty and the food is good, so it won't be that much of a problem, yeah?"

"You can't see it but you should know that I'm glaring at you."

"Oh, stop it, Steve—we both know you're about as frightening as a newborn baby lamb, _especially_ when you try."

They've been there enough times for Steve to know it's a pointless argument to have so he drops it with a heavy sigh, making it just strong enough for Sharon to hear it loud and clear on her end of the line.

"Hey, you're not gonna give up, are you?"

Steve looks between one of the particularly detailed sketches—or, as detailed as it gets in this case—and his blank canvas, trying to envision transfering all the various parts of Bucky he managed to catch so far onto it in the form of a portrait. It's very quick that he realizes that he needs so much more than these glimpses. He needs the mannerisms, the moods, the aura. How can he possibly get that by staying ten strides away from him at all times?

"I just don't know what I can do anymore. I should've never agreed to that thing, it's ridiculous," he says defeated, dropping all the papers altogether and watching their short flight until they scatter all over his floor. "I don't know what's worse, painting a portrait of someone without them knowing _or_ erasing their identity for the sake of—I'm not even sure. Some very weird form of emotional comfort of his family? These people need a shrink, not an artist."

"Different people deal differently with their trauma, Steve. It's not up to you to decide how they should cope with it all."

"I get it, but—where is he in all of this? He seems so detached and closed-off, even around his family. From what I gathered, that was not the case before the attack. I just don't think this is fair of them—and not particularly moral of me. What are the chances of him actually sharing his parents's ideas of coping methods?"

"I guess you'll find out in a few weeks, won't you."

In this particular moment it feels as if this piece of white, blank canvas is mocking both his mental dilemma and complete lack of progress, and he has half a mind to open the nearest window and toss it right outside of it.

Instead, he just pushes the easel back under the wall and out of the way, finally accepting the fact that it's going to be just another wasted day where he has absolutely nothing to put on top of that unimpressive background.

"Yeah. I guess so."

*

Sometime in the midst of his second week of the commission work, Steve already feels well acquainted with this part of Staten Island and all the traveling between here and Brooklyn, although tedious and taking way too much time out of his day, is not as bad or stressful anymore. Once he gets to 222 Guyon Ave, he falls into a pattern: before getting inside he takes a few moments to assess the weather conditions and decide which of the three paintings he will work on that day, which is followed by a small talk with Winifred or—depending on the day of the week—Becca, who seems to have grown to like Steve, if he may say so himself.

(There's some sort of a bond forming between them, which Steve suspects may be directly connected with Bucky and how it's apparent that they both don't necessarily agree with their parents's views on what may be good for him. Becca's raging hatred for raisins that first day turns out to be more about the argument she had about the whole commission idea ("although raisins, quite frankly, are the worst thing that has happened to the baking industry," she explains one day with that same disgust on her face) and her fierce protectiveness and sheer understanding of her older brother's struggles and condition makes Steve suddenly wish he had a sibling of his own too.)

Whatever conversation they engage in usually ends up in a tea and dessert invitation, regardless of what time of the day it currently is – but it is one of the perks of stepping a foot inside the professional baker's house, Steve supposes. He manages to dodge it two out of three times, finding that struggling with blood sugar levels usually does the trick, and is then thankfully left alone to set up outside and work on his pieces.

Seventh visit in, he's got a fair bit of progress made on the scenery paintings and between the one depicting the house on a sunny day, gloomy afternoon and calm evening, the first one seems to be on the most advanced level so far, courtesy of an exceptionally good weather up until today. With more and more horror though, he faces the fact that the same can't be said about the portrait, the state of which is still just a few conceptual sketches of a silhouette without a face or any detail. For all Steve knows, it could be anyone, from Barack Obama, through George Barnes, to Steve himself, and he can't imagine it fitting even within the very understanding brackets of _do your best_ that Winifred mentioned on their first meeting.

 _It is fine though,_ he tells himself for what feels like a hundredth time this week, as he finally settles under the pop up gazebo that was set up for him to comfortably paint on the rainy days; _I will somehow wing it like I do most things,_ follows the not at all confident thought which he tries to push away for the time being. He's got just a few strokes of color on this particular canvas so he's glad for the dark clouds and an opportunity to work on it, the world a little more grey and grim and yet still making all the early fall plants pop out with their bright, rich shades of green.

When he starts to paint, it's like he enters a whole another dimension, a place where time does not exist and the world is limited to the very scene he's currently painting. To the color that is picked up by the tip of his brush, to the shape that he presses into the canvas, to the mood he tries to soak up and channel through his very own being, like he's a liaison between the reality and the art.

Steve doesn't notice him at first. Hyper-focusing on a single detail, getting just the right shade of off-white for the horizontal wood panels of the house, there's very little he sees aside from it; it's only after a fifth or so attempt at mixing the color on his palette and testing it on a small patch of the canvas that he's finally satisfied with it and allows himself to relax and take a step back to look at the big picture again.

The big picture reveals Bucky, wandering across Steve's scene in that typical way of someone who has nowhere to go and nothing to do – his steps are slow, almost sluggish, and he's clearly engrossed in whatever it is he's reading on the device held in his hand. It's the hand, above anything else, that catches Steve's eye. To a normal person, it'd probably look like any other hand and their gaze would move on without much thought, but Steve _knows_ it not quite like anything else and his keen eye is quick to catch the way it reflects the daylight, like a piece of jewelry made of antique silver. He finds it beautiful, in a way, although he's also painfully aware what is beauty to him, is terror to someone else – which in turn instantly makes him feel guilty.

By the time Bucky himself realizes the situation he must have unconsciously put himself in, Steve has long since gone back to painting, his focus shifting fluidly between the painting at hand and the man wandering back and forth across the lawn, trying to desperately catch as many details of his entire silhouette as possible. And when Bucky stops and looks at him, for what to Steve is the first time since they met, he feels like he can't be quick enough to memorize all the points of that face, the awareness that it will most likely gone in a blink of an eye creeping at the back of his mind.

"Hey," he hears, and the face is still there, just a few steps away, the eyes of the color that seems to match today's weather perfectly turned towards him.

"Hi," Steve says back, because the weight of this seemingly mundane moment is pressing against all his vital organs all at once, making it a bit hard to focus. Small talk has never been his strength and he can't imagine it changing in the face of someone he sort of deceives and lies to by omission for the sake of personal gain.

Bucky's eyes shift lower, and for a moment Steve can't decide if he's judging his paint-stained jeans or simply takes note of the easel, before he looks back up again.

"I'm getting in the way of your painting, aren't I," it's more of a statement than a question, and it's ridiculous how eager Steve suddenly feels to say that he's wrong. "Sorry. I'll find myself some other place to stroll around aimlessly."

It sounds almost as if he's _joking_ , but as Steve cannot be certain—did the corner of Bucky's lips pull up momentarily or was it just an odd twitch of Steve's own eye?—he decides it'd feel wrong to laugh.

"I won't mind the company if this happens to be your favorite spot to meander," he says, not really expecting much to come out of the suggestion. They've been circling around each other for over a week now, their only real conversation being the one on their first day, and no matter how approachable Steve tried to appear, how hard he aspired to find just the right balance between showing interest and keeping respectful distance, it has never gone beyond a simple greeting, a tight-lipped smile and an off-hand sentence thrown in a way that left no room for Steve to respond to.

He may have promised himself that he won't give up – but after a certain number of attempts even the most persistent people will start to lose hope.

When all that responds to him is silence and distant hum of gentle wind rustling just the very tops of the highest trees, Steve simply goes back to laying down the base colors onto his canvas, working without much of a plan for the time being – he'll go from the deep greens of the grass, to the blues and grays of the sky, and then back to the brows and creams of the paths cutting through the garden. It's a bit messy, chaotic, sort of like his thoughts at the moment, and strangely, he finds comfort in it, the brush to him being what punching bag may be to some.

He's not sure how long it takes for him to realize that Bucky did not, in fact, ignore his suggestion and leave as he usually does. Trying to awkwardly swipe some hair away from his forehead with his own upper arm makes him catch the fact of his presence, right there, just two or three steps behind his right shoulder. Leaning against a nearby tree, he's once again engrossed in whatever it is he's reading, eyes slightly squinted as if his vision isn't quite perfect anymore, one shoulder hunched in a natural way – while the other remains stiff and upright, like it doesn't quite belong to the rest of the body.

 _It doesn't_ , Steve reminds himself, hurrying to turn back towards his canvas. The need to pick up the notebook and make a few quick sketches, desperate to note down whatever new small details he managed to catalogue, is overwhelmingly strong – but as something tells him Bucky might not be overly happy to see that, all things considered, he stores it in the back in his mind, promising to put it down on paper as soon as possible.

He's back to trying to mix the same off-white shade for the house, getting just the slightest bit frustrated as he keeps picking too much one or the other color on the small knife, when there's a movement behind him, so sudden in the midst of all the stillness that it might've as well been a bomb going off right next to Steve's ear.

"You keep going back and forth between the same three colors," Bucky says, and Steve may not have too much experience with his voice, but it does sound to him like it's full of cautious curiosity and a little bit of hesitance. Like he's not used to talking to people, or to painters—or perhaps just to Steve.

"Yeah," Steve confirms, his eyebrows pulling together as another swipe of the newly mixed colors still doesn't give him the desired result. Close, but not quite. "Trying to mix for the wooden panels of your house. I got it once," he points to the few swipes of color already laid onto the canvas, "but I can't seem to get it right again."

"Wouldn't it be easier to keep the track of it by noting down the measurements?"

The suggestion makes Steve chuckle lightly, because yes, while it's a very logical idea, it could only come from someone who knows little to nothing about the process of creating any kind of art.

"Unfortunately, painting isn't like, let's say, prescribing medicine," he says, glancing at Bucky over his shoulder to catch his reaction. While the last thing Steve wants to be is insensitive, it is still Bucky who came forward first and, ideally, Steve doesn't want to feel like he needs to coddle him and watch his every step he takes around him. It seems like his parents are already doing more than enough of that – and it doesn't feel to Steve like Bucky is the type to appreciate something like this, either.

There's no reaction, positive or negative, which Steve chooses to take as a good sign.

"There's no list of diseases and corresponding cures, you can't just measure it out in milliliters and milligrams. It's all about the feel. What seems to be the right color, what looks good next to the other colors already there, what matches the mood you're going for? It's very spontaneous and hard to keep the track of. Sometimes I'll think I know what effect I want to achieve, but once it's there, it doesn't seem right. Other times I'll just play around and accidentally come up with something that matches my piece perfectly, but I'd have never thought of it intentionally."

"Sounds like I'd never make a good artist. Spontaneity comes hard to me, especially recently," Bucky says after a few moments, his read for the day abandoned and eyes fixed on Steve's hands instead, as if their simple labor appears as more interesting than the any of the best books out there. It flatters Steve, naturally, but flusters him too. Very quickly does he realize that Bucky's gaze tends to get rather intense once it focuses on one spot.

"Believe it or not, but it does to me, too," he admits, a crooked smile pressing into his lips. "Probably why I struggle with these damn panels so much right now."

"You'll get it, eventually. Clearly, you know what you're doing."

Steve has never been particularly good with compliments, mostly just sort of shrinking once they hit him and immediately trying to come up with reasons why the person is incorrect in their assessment – but strangely enough, Bucky's praise feels good. Maybe because he doesn't seem like the type to say things he doesn't mean. Maybe because it feels like some kind of a stepping stone in—whatever it is Steve has been trying to do over the past week.

Regardless of the reason, he'll think about it for a long time, keeping these simple words surprisingly close to his heart.

"Thanks."

*

It's only a few days and similar conversations later, in the early morning lull of his small Brooklyn apartment, that he pulls the easel to the middle of his bedroom with the very intention of finally starting on the portrait. On a small foldable table there are some of the loose pen and pencil sketches strewn around—a few of them crumpled at the edges, others with what are obviously coffee stains imprinted in various places—a collection of two weeks worth of small glimpses, too important to ignore and yet not enough to warrant a painting of their own.

Steve looks through the papers, fingers almost overly gentle in handling them for what they are, as he perches atop his high stool, the toes of bare feet just barely reaching the pleasant coldness of his apartment's oak floorboards. With both the easel and his back turned towards the window, the soft rays of the morning sun not only hit the canvas with just the right amount of diffused light, but they also provide the specific kind of warmth that feels, on this chilly lonely morning, a bit like an embrace. It somehow helps to ease Steve into the depths of his own memories, eyes closing and mind reaching beneath the surface to pick out the desired images of the days past.

Steve’s hand reaches out and presses the bristles of the brush against the canvas even before he opens his eyes. The first few strokes are all instinct, following the outlines of the memories: the clenched jaw, the polite half-smiles, the desperately sad pull of steel blue eyes, so very reminiscent of the skies on the day of their first meeting.

Only a few moments later, gaze focused and thoughts gathered at the forefront of his mind, conscious calculation enters the picture and reminds him of how this is not about what he sees – but about what his commissioners so desperately _want_ to see. Where Steve's fingers itch to press a smudge of a slightly darker color around the mouth area, to mark the scar that cuts through the left side of the upper lip, the clear directions he received from Winifred make him pull back, leaving the light tan of future skin color unmarred by any deeper shades.

This goes on and on, instincts telling him one thing and mind correcting it before the brush can follow, and the more it happens, the more frustrated Steve becomes.

 _This is not right,_ he tells himself, thinking back to all the conversations they had, to all the mundane, seemingly insignificant situations when he observed him, noting how—all things considered—well he seems to be coping with everything. Sure, he may not like his scars. It may still be too difficult to go back to his usual routines. His personality may have changed and may never go back to how it used to be – but is it not relatively normal, for what he's gone through? Does he not deserve the benefit of the doubt and the comfort of recovering at his own pace?

Steve tries to understand. He really does. But times and times again, he finds that he can't, and the more he spends time with Bucky, the more space he takes up inside of his head – the more he regrets ever agreeing to the idea of creating this portrait, the sense of challenge and experience be damned.

A few hours later, sitting back and looking at all the shapes and colors laid out on the canvas, he finds it difficult to be happy about the progress when a part of him keeps itching to add there all the little details that make Bucky the Bucky he's getting to know, instead of some fictional former shell of himself.

*

The thing is that, although Steve hasn't been the victim of a terrorist attack or lost anything as vital as a limb, he knows what is means to struggle. He knows all about grief, having to figure out new ways of life after a major trauma and dealing with intense mind-numbing pain that hinders his daily activity – and a part of him thinks that this is perhaps why he believes he can _understand_ Bucky and why he subconsciously tries to figure him out beyond the ordered painting that he already knows he will hate.

Someday in his third week of the commission work, he's hit by a particularly nasty bout of symptoms of his chronic illness that has been a steady companion throughout most of his life. Being way too acquainted with it by now, he knows better than to try and push through the crippling pain of his back to continue with his day as usual and, after a brief moment of frustration, followed by anger and finally melting into pure resignation, calls in sick to both his morning work at the museum and afternoon commitments at the Barnes's.

While the first is rather understanding and doesn't inquire in his reasons more than necessary, Mrs Barnes wants to know everything there is to know about the why's and what's, which would be heart-warming in any other situation, but between the pain and bitterness flooding Steve's mind, he can't find it in himself to truly appreciate it. Later, when he feels better, he'll most likely regret all the dismissive half-sentences and general lack of manners that his mother, bless her heart, would be surely scolding him for for the next few weeks at least; but right now, throwing his phone as far away as possible and sliding down onto his couch to succumb to his medicine-muted pain, he can only be glad for the peace and quiet and lack of commitments for the next twenty-four hours.

The sound of the doorbell ringing through the whole apartment pulls him from a rather pleasant state of half-sleep just a couple hours later, immediately pushing the awareness of all the pain and discomfort back to the forefront of his brain. There's a very pressing need in Steve to just yell at whoever is behind his door to get the hell out and never come back, but unfortunately, he's been brought up better than that, which means he forces himself to get up from the couch and limps, half-bent at the waist, all the way across the living room to pull at the door handle in a much less energetic and angry way than he'd ideally want to.

The fact that it's Bucky standing there, of all the people in Steve's life, is the only thing that keeps him from lashing out.

He looks—normal. Which means that he looks good – a fact that Steve has grown to admit, accept and, against himself, appreciate – and it also means that it has to be glaringly apparent that Steve himself is the polar opposite of it, now more than ever. And while Steve is far from a vain person, minding his looks only just enough to be respectably presentable on a daily basis (thankfully, that spectrum is rather wide when taking into account that he's a freelance artist), he'd still rather appear as at least put together while facing someone he personally finds as exceptionally handsome.

"Mother sent me," Bucky says eventually, after the silence between them has gone for a touch too long to be considered normal. He shifts his arm a bit, intentionally making the plastic bag rustle, weighed down by some boxes. "Packed food, gave me the address and told me to make the delivery and make sure you'll eat it. Something about _young lonely people these days not taking sufficient care about their health_ , or whatever," Steve finds it funny how, despite not modulating his voice at all, he still manages to sound exactly like Winifred; comes with the genes, he supposes.

"That—wasn't necessary," Steve stutters out, actually embarrassed by the lengths a mere stranger would go to for him. Miraculously, it seems to outweigh the annoyance he felt just before pulling the door open.

"I know," Bucky agrees, stepping through the threshold as Steve invites him in wordlessly.

There's a moment of clarity that hits Steve like a ton of bricks and the adrenaline that rushes through him makes him forget all about the pain momentarily, watching Bucky make his way inside his apartment and realizing that there's what could be considered an obscene amount of Bucky's face—and various body parts—scattered in more or less advanced sketches all over the place. If Steve didn't have a good enough reason for it, even he would call this an obsession of some sorts, and he can't imagine making even a semi-appropriate excuse as to why he'd be _this_ interested in drawing Bucky.

So he panics, and is very close to doing something stupid, like throwing himself on the floor screaming, in hopes that it'll be enough for Bucky to not notice anything else around, but then—then he tells himself, _you're an adult, Steve, you can handle this civilly,_ and this quarter of a pep talk is enough to reassess the situation in a much calmer manner. He's mostly working on the portrait in his bedroom, courtesy of the best lighting, and while the door is half-open and the inside could be technically peeked into, Bucky doesn't seem like the kind of person who would snoop around without a clear invitation. There are most likely some sketches strewn around the living room, possibly even kitchen, but Steve works on this project mainly through his trusty old notebook and likes to keep it all in one place, so the chance of stragglers for this particular commission should be low.

It's fine, _you're fine._ Except when he calms down, so does the adrenaline in his system, allowing the pain and discomfort to kick back in with twice the strength. Very quickly does it go beyond the bravery and endurance he's capable of, ending in him seeking his safe spot back on the couch, falling onto it in this awkward, stiff way with little to no regard of what his guest may think of him.

"Sorry," he mutters half against the pillow, wanting nothing more than to press his face into it fully and yell. Or perhaps just let it smother him, so he doesn't have to deal with it all anymore. "I meant it when I said I can't work."

"I can see that," he stands there, just a few steps away from the couch, always keeping the same minimum distance from Steve, as if it's some kind of an unspoken protocol he decided to follow around him. He looks hilariously out of place in Steve's apartment, all rough around the edgesand sticking out of the background of soft creams and pastel pistachios and flowy curtains. It may be the pain and the medicine talking, but Steve finds that he likes the contrast. "Need me to heat up the food?"

"No," he groans, making a face. "Can't stomach anything, the pain creeping up my back makes me nauseous."

"Medicine?"

"Took it already, don't wanna overdo it."

"Where is it?"

Steve throws one of his arms in the general direction of the kitchen, where he left the box in which he keeps all the medicine on the small table. He knows the moment Bucky found it by the sound the table makes, all creaky and wobbly, a leftover after the previous tenant of the apartment. He comes back with the box of pills in his flesh hand, looking it over and reading the labels, and it might be just Steve's head, but he seems to soften by the minute, as if assimilating to the environment.

"I've had many patients take these," he says after a few moments, fingers tapping against the cardboard. "I'm assuming you don't reach for it daily, so you should be safe to take two more single doses. In case of sudden inflammations, I usually recommended one double to kick down the first wave of pain, and then two single to maintain it."

"Right. Forgot you're a doctor—thing. Your parents mentioned."

"A _doctor thing_ sounds about right," Bucky cracks a smile – an _actual_ smile, not a polite tight-lipped grimace and not a hallucination of Steve's eyes either, and Steve's heart may or may not have skipped a beat. It's gone before he can fully commit to memorizing it in details, but it'll not leave his drugged mind for at least a few days now, he's sure. "Physical therapist. I don't prescribe medication but know just enough to give some advice—especially with body aches."

There's a moment in which Bucky disappears, only to come back with a glass of water and a very familiar looking pill, offering it to Steve who doesn't hesitate to down it, the pain of having to lift himself up enough to swallow be damned.

"I could probably help more—there are a few things that will ease some of the discomfort."

Maybe it's the way he says it, the strangely warm and caring timbre of his voice that Steve has not had the chance to experience before and could easily mistake for being overly patronizing or pitying. Maybe it's the pain, clouding his mind. Maybe it's the bitterness, leeching onto his sense of unfairness, dealing with such conditions at a young age of barely twenty-eight.

Maybe it's all of the above that makes him snap, so uncharacteristically for him.

"I don't need help with something that I've been living and dealing with my whole life," comes the sharp response, causing Steve's entire body to tense up in a way that shoots a stinging bolt of mind-numbing pain along the entire length of his spine.

He regrets the words a whole five seconds after they're out, shame covering him like a blanket as he looks into those sad, steel blue eyes that don't waver even for a moment. There's some kind of recognition in them, Steve realizes, as if he's watching something he already knows all about.

"I'm sorry," he reflects before Bucky manages to say anything or, more likely, get up and leave.

"It's fine. I get it. I'm not here to act like I understand or know your struggle better than you," Bucky's voice is calm and level, as it always has been during three weeks worth of their encounters, and Steve can't help but wonder what it'd take for some kind of emotion to morph it into anything else. "But this is what I do—used to do, and you can use it to your advantage."

The way he says just the right thing makes Steve realize just how similar they must be in how they deal with their shortcomings – hating to be dependent, preferring to tackle it by themselves at the right pace, detesting pity and coddling and being smothered by somebody's care.

"What do I do then?" Steve asks, willing his body to relax and give in.

Turns out it's all about knowing how to alleviate the pressure on the inflamed points. Bucky picks up two blankets and spreads them across the floor, in a way that's so quick and efficient that Steve can barely tell one of his arms is a prosthetic. He does recall Becca mentioning this is some more advanced, still experimental tech that needs frequent adjustments, monitoring and additional training, but it seems to work exceptionally well for Bucky.

Bucky offers to help Steve get up and settle down on the prepared spot on the floor, but Steve being Steve refuses, doing it himself with the speed of a snail and elegance of an elephant.

"You want to give your back a firm, steady support, that's why the floor is your best bet, even if it may seem uncomfortable," Bucky explains, his monotone voice strangely soothing in this moment. "Lay down on your side now, whichever feels better to you," he instructs, reaching for something behind Steve's back.

"What if neither does?"

"Tough luck. Pick one."

When Steve does, trying to roll onto it clumsily, the pressure of one hand on his back and the other at his shoulder helps him, gently but with just enough strength adjusting him in the position.

"It's warm," he blurts out, without much thinking, once he realizes that the fingers that press into skin just above the collar of his shirt are metal, yet not cold like he'd expect them to be.

To Steve's surprise, there's no tense silence that follows the comment.

"Yeah. One of the many fancy things it's capable of," Bucky responds with what Steve judges as relative ease, continuing to steer his body into a desired position. One arm under his head, the other loose, the entire silhouette straight and legs comfortably bent at the knees.

"What else?" Steve asks, half because he's curious and half because he welcomes the distraction.

"Strength auto-calibration. Weather resistance. Enhanced touch sensors that send signals to my brain," when he taps Steve's knee and shows him a pillow that he took from the couch, he changes the subject momentarily. "I'm going to slide this between your legs. It'll line up your spine and prevent it from bending in any position other than neutral."

Steve nods, trying not to think too much about someone pressing something between his legs, and wills himself to focus back on Bucky's arm.

"Huh," he considers after a while, impressed. "Any downsides?"

Only after it's out does he realize how much of a faux pas the question is, so he follows up with, "Aside from the obvious, I suppose."

Bucky seems to be satisfied with the positioning of Steve's body at that point, as he leans away from him and assesses it quietly with an eventual nod of his head. Steve may have not had much experience with physical therapists – but based on this experience he thinks that Bucky must be good at what he does.

"Makes me feel like I'm not human anymore, sometimes," he confesses after some time, with a small crooked smile that makes the scarred skin on his upper lip pull it weirdly; a smile that is far from happy.

There isn't anything that Steve can respond to that.

*

It takes Steve two days to recover from the pain and despite seeing those periods as generally wasted, at least this time he managed to learn something new through it. Feeling too hazy during Bucky's visit, he completely forgot to thank him for the help and a very dramatic part of him was absolutely sure there will be no more chances to do it, with Bucky realizing what a mistake opening up to Steve had been and not wanting to speak to him ever again.

Thursday visit to Staten Island proves him wrong though.

After returning the plastic containers to Mrs Barnes and spending approximately twenty-five longest minutes of his life getting his ear chewed off about _not taking sufficient care of your health, honestly, kids these days!,_ he sets up at his usual spot under the gazebo. He looks forward to finishing the rainy back patio piece today, taking advantage of yet another cloudy day and hoping that a more cheerful weather will be more frequent in the upcoming week, allowing him to finish the entire set in a timely manner.

It takes about half an hour for a familiar, leisure gait to enter his field of vision, Steve wondering if he does it on purpose at this point.

"Should I add you to this painting, considering you seem to be a permanent element of the scenery?" Steve calls out, feeling brave for a moment.

"Don't bother, you'll ruin the thing," Bucky responds, approaching the shade of the gazebo and nearby trees just as the first drops of rain start to gently pitter-patter all around.

"You're not _that_ bad looking."

"Thanks."

It's strange how it takes three weeks of some of the weirdest interactions he's ever had with anyone to make Steve feel so comfortable and at ease around someone. Bucky hovers at his shoulder and despite Steve usually _hating_ people hovering while he works, he finds he doesn't mind Bucky doing it at all—quite the opposite. 

"I wanted to thank you," he picks up their conversation at some point, not pulling away from adding what he expects to be the last layer of lights and shadows to this canvas. Working not only with the color but also texture, it takes quite a bit of back and forth, making it seem like it takes forever to achieve the desired result on the smallest of details. "Floor naps turned out to really help."

"Told you I'm good at my job."

"It'd be hard for me to disagree at this point, yes," Steve agrees with amusement, recognizing the flippant acceptance of a compliment by someone who typically doesn't like to receive them right away.

They stay in their familiar silence after that, in the midst of which Steve realized that Bucky doesn't read this time and seems to focus entirely on watching Steve paint.

It's a surprise to have Bucky speak up first some time later, too.

"Fair warning that mother will delegate me as your driver for the near future. Something about not letting you hurt yourself for the sake of work any more than you already have, and some similarly dramatic sentiments," he mentions with clearly audible amusement but also weariness hiding in between the syllables of his words. He probably has more than enough of that on a daily basis.

"Surely you have better things to do than to drive me back all the way to Brooklyn—there's no need for that, regardless of Mrs Barnes's… uh, overwhelming hospitality."

"I think you know her by now good enough to know there's very little point in trying to argue with her. Trust me on that, I've had twenty-nine years of experience with it," the heavy sigh that follows the statement is more than enough to cut any further discussion Steve may have had in himself short and he ends up just huffing a small laugh, not for the first time wondering if maybe, after all, this is his very own mother having her fun with his fate from somewhere up above and beyond.

Just as warned, Winifred rises up to their expectations, practically shoving them together in Bucky's car and wishing them safe roads ahead, with Becca having way too much fun with it all a few steps behind her. While it begins as sort of an awkward affair, cramped together in a very small space and forced into each other's close company, they manage to slowly ease into it, the tension slowly melting and giving way to quiet conversations and exchanging music recommendations while looking through the car's online radio playlists.

Many times over the next few days, leaning back into the leather seat, reclined to accommodate his aching back, Steve itches to pull out the notebook from his bag and sketch Bucky's profile as he talks about some mundane thing, comments on the road ahead or just drives in silence, only his head doing the barely-there bops and nods to whatever song is currently playing in the background. He looks good like that, looks like he wants to be there, despite basically being forced into babying Steve as if he's a toddler than needs constant attention or he'll otherwise hurt himself beyond saving.

The things is, this car-Bucky is different than the Guyon Ave-Bucky – more relaxed, as if freed from whatever it is that causes him to tighten up and shut down back there. The expectations, Steve imagines, the constant surveillance of everything he does and judgement of whether it's deemed as good enough, appropriate enough for the state that he is in. Family tends to get like this, trying to do their absolute best and achieving the very contradiction of it without even realizing, and Steve feels for Bucky and wishes he could memorialize these good, relaxing moments for Bucky to somehow extend them in time. Give more of it to him – and, selfishly, to himself too.

What he does instead, is to go back home, pull the easel to the middle of his bedroom and continue doing the exact opposite.

The more progress he makes on the portrait and the more details of Bucky's face—his entire being—he erases even before pressing it into the canvas with the brush, the more he feels guilty, like he's betraying him and his trust and, frankly, his own self too. There's something almost perverse in the way he strips someone of all the small things that make him _him,_ and instead adds fake ones that feel completely out of place and yet it is his job to make them seem natural. It's like being in denial about the reality and desperately wanting to create a new version of it for the sake of artificially crafted comfort.

It's precisely what Bucky's parents are doing.

With time, the guilt becomes secondary only to fear – of what will happen when Bucky finally sees this fictional portrait? What his reaction to Steve keeping it all in secret from him will be? Will he understand—will he at least try to? That fear is probably why it takes Steve so long to start working on the eyes – the eyes that will watch his every movement from that point onwards, judging, scrutinizing, making Steve feel even more paranoid.

(Becca approaches him one day just as he tidies up all his equipment, cleaning the brushes and moving the easel with an almost finished painting to the garage, where he got a bit of space to use for storing purposes. It's been a long day for Steve and all he really wants is to crawl into Bucky's car, maybe catch a quick nap on their way, and finally give his back a proper rest at home, the set of blankets spread on the floor rarely picked up anymore these days. As it is, conversation with a usually overly energetic Rebecca is not very high on his list of priorities but he'd rather die than blow her off, so he flashes her a small, tired smile in a greeting, trying to remain as approachable as possible. The truth is that he has grown fond of her almost as much as her brother.

"Close to finishing the project?" she asks, curiosity sparkling like fireworks in the way she speaks and looks at him.

"Yeah—both parts," he admits, unable to hold back the small wince that pinches his face at the mention of the more problematic side of his commission. Bringing it up while still on Guyon Ave feels a bit like committing a crime.

Becca is silent for a moment, like she understands the weight of that statement. She's probably the only other person who truly _gets it_ , with Bucky being kept in the dark and his parents remaining oblivious to the kind of damage they may inadvertently cause them all.

"He talks about you, you know," the way she looks at him is with such kindness and fondness that it makes Steve feel warm all over. "He— _talks_ , which he hasn't on his own, not even to me, not really, in a long time."

There's a moment of connection there between them, when they just look at each other and see what are probably very similar things—similar _feelings._

"I hope you'll stick around after you're done with the paintings, Steve."

They both realize at this point that the decision whether it happens or not might not be up to Steve at all.

"I do, too.")

When he finally decides to paint the eyes, these cold, blueish grey depths that he struggles to make seem cheerful, he's still at least a few sessions away from finishing the entire piece. Having them watch him, steadily and impassively, works as a form of self-punishment that, in some terrifyingly wicked way, makes him feel better. Like it's preparing him for the inevitable. Like it's giving him hope that, once it comes, maybe it all won't feel that bad.

*

If there's one sight that is not exactly common for a home of any regular person but way too frequent in Steve's case, it's his modest amount of living room furniture pushed away from its center and the floor being used as one big working space. While majority of his actual work demands him to stay upright, he finds that the planning and visualizing part of it all is best done on as big of a surface as possible, all laid out in front of him and ready to be switched around as he pleases. It's a bit like his brain requires a much bigger canvas than anything that can possibly fit on an easel or a computer screen, and while his closest friends tend to often joke that he'd need at least ___ for all that's going on inside of his head, Steve thinks that his living room usually makes do just fine.

He's just in the middle of his third shift-around of the twelve big sheets of paper, all with various, rough sketches belonging to one project, when he hears the doorbell ring. A quick look at the clock tells him it's past 8pm – a time when he typically doesn't get guests unless it's some kind of an emergency or a food delivery. Even in his creative haze he doesn't recall ordering anything, so it's with a furrowed brow that he skips around the sheets of paper, just his toes aiming for the small spaces in between them, and gets to whatever surprise is standing at his threshold.

He's not sure if it's relief or worry that floods him at the sight that greets him.

To be fair, it's a nice sight. Steve has no objections to seeing that handsome face, dear at this point, with all the small and bigger scars that he has mapped out plenty of times in his head. In an ideal world, he'd see this face daily and with a purpose – but in the real one, it's their meetings are erratic and highly dependable on a temporary job that, for all Steve knows, may ruin whatever fragile, budding relationship is there between the two of them. In this world, the face is sad and worried and, above all, _hesitant,_ like it doesn't really want to be here, like all it feels like doing is to turn around and run.

"Can I stay here for a while? I—can't go home, not right now," Bucky says before Steve manages to utter any form of a greeting. He sounds out of breath, like he's been running, even though Steve can't see any other sign of physical exhaustion and is fairly sure no jogging has been done there in the past few minutes.

"Of course, come in," it's an automatic thing for Steve, Bucky's action pushing him to an instant reaction, so eager for the contact, whatever it may be, that it flusters him every time he takes notice of it – which is why he mostly chooses to ignore it, for the sake of his own sanity.

Only after Bucky gets inside and Steve pushes the door close does he realize that he's covered in smudges of varying intensity of black, neither the charcoal or his way of working being the most clean approaches to art projects. His embarrassment lasts only for as long as it takes him to focus back on Bucky—which, let's be honest, isn't long at all—and notice just how absolutely defeated and _weary_ he looks, standing there in the middle of Steve's place, silhouette askew as usual, as if he's always a little off-balance because of the prosthetic.

"I'm disturbing you while working," he says, a statement rather than a question, his eyes wandering over the sketches.

"Not at all. You'd disturb me if you started tramping all over these—which I somehow trust you won't do," Steve counters immediately, chancing a bit of humor in his words as he walks over to what he likes to refer to as his mind map and sits down in the middle of it.

There's this thing that he thinks he has learned about Bucky – that no matter what, he seems to loathe being coddled and treated like some kind of a special case. It's been a while since Steve realized that it may be exactly why they somehow managed to find a common language, two complete strangers, one of whom still struggling with trauma after over a year of recovery time in his family house. It's no wonder that Bucky never joins their breakfasts or dinners and barely speaks at all, if every step of the way he's being reminded what a poor, unfortunate person he is.

Steve would know all about it, having been treated very similarly when the only remaining part of his closest family died. He still remembers the overwhelming desire to heal, grow through the pain and move on, yet being held back by people who refused to accept him do things in his own pace, on his own terms.

That's why, instead of crowding Bucky with all the care and worry, he just goes back to his work, even if there's realistically close to zero chance of him actually being able to focus on it now. Still, he can pretend. He can give Bucky what he needs, a place so much different than what awaits him back on Guyon Ave, an odd kind of comfort that heals through the lack of thereof.

"If you want anything to drink, help yourself to whatever you find in the kitchen. I'm afraid there might not be too much food though, I need to yet do some grocery shopping this week," he says easily, as if talking to a roommate and not someone who was still a complete stranger a month ago. Picking up a piece of charcoal, he looks up to scout for Bucky's reaction – who seems to take a moment, like he's deciding what to do, and then shrugs off his jacket and makes his way to the kitchen.

"Do you want coffee?" He hears a few moments and some tinkering around later, voice a bit muffled, as if coming from inside one of the cabinets. On the lookout for the coffee tin, then.

"Yeah," Steve responds, craning his neck a bit to take a peek inside the kitchen. It's 8pm, but yes, of course he wants coffee. Realistically, he'd probably want anything that Bucky offered to him right now. "Top left cabinet, by the fridge."

"Thanks," another murmur, this time much clearer, with an unmistakable sound of a spoon hitting the metal tin.

Steve half-expects the question about milk and sugar to come any second now, but it doesn't – and when a chipped pink mug—all his mugs are chipped and at least half of them, for whatever reason, are pink—is placed on the floor, just within reach but not dangerously close to any of the sketches, it's just the right kind of brew: strong, sweet and with just a few drops of almond milk.

He hasn't realized that they're at the stage where Bucky somehow figured out and remembered his exact coffee preferences.

Steve doesn't remember the last time someone did.

It's nice.

"So what is it?" Bucky asks, sitting down on the couch—now awkwardly pushed from its usual spot so that one would need walk around it to be able to go inside the bedroom—with a mug of his own. "Looks like messy work," he adds after a while, looking at Steve in a way that makes him nearly sure that there are definitely some coal smudges on his face. He fights the urge to wipe it, deciding to wear them with honor, like an artistic interpretation of battle wounds.

"Yeah," Steve agrees, adding a few pointless lines here and there to one of the sketches, just to keep his hands busy. "It really doesn't need to be, the project is supposed to be mostly digital. I just don't work well with technology when it comes to the whole creative thought process."

"Should've known you're an analog kind of guy," Bucky comments with a small smile, his face expression being one of fondness, if Steve dares to have such brave, outlandish thoughts. "You probably don't write emails and stick to letters, too?"

It makes Steve roll his eyes a bit, hands shifting to switch the places of a few of the sketches, completely lost at this point in what kind of an arrangement he's going for with these anymore. "I'll have you know that we set up a meeting with your mother through a series of very professional emails," he says, as if it's an achievement of some sorts, but reflects on it quickly enough, "After I remembered that such thing as an email inbox exists, that is."

"My point exactly."

"I do write text messages frequently though," he's quick to follow up, throwing Bucky a challenging kind of look in a sudden rush of courage, "You could find it out yourself, if you finally gave me your phone number."

He shouldn't feel like a teenager confessing a crush to his first romantic interest, what's with being a grown-up responsible twenty-eight year old adult, and all that, and yet here he is, heart on his sleeve and fingers crossed for the best outcome possible.

"All you have to do is ask," comes just a moment later, and he sounds like he's _teasing him_ , and Steve honestly can't believe that he's been feeling sorry for him just fifteen minutes ago.

Except that he still does, because when Bucky leans over his mug, looking like he's about to willfully drown himself in it, he wishes he could do something more to help than just talk about the most random things he can think of. Briefly, he recalls when a week ago, on the same day, Bucky mentioned dropping Steve off on his way to therapy, and it suddenly all makes even more sense. Suddenly, talking feels like the best thing he can do. Bucky has probably done enough talking for the day.

So he talks, babbles really, shifting back to sketching and going through the steps of what he's doing. He tells Bucky about this project, how he got the gig in the first place and what his plans for it are. Explains the sketches, why he shuffles them around time after time, why he picked up charcoal for it, of all the possibilities (no reason, he just enjoys the way it feels and how messy it gets, to which Bucky comments, once again with this maybe-hopefully-fondness, "you're a child, Steve"). Bucky will hum a sound of affirmation sometimes, ask a short question here and there – nothing of substance really, nothing that would make this anything else than a monologue on Steve's part, just enough to let Steve know that he's still here, listening, potentially interested. Maybe appreciative. Steve hopes so.

At some point, when their mugs are long since empty, Steve has ran out of things to say and Bucky just sort of lounges on the couch, half-watching the tv quietly humming in the background and half-observing what Steve does. With his back having more than enough of bending over the floor, he shifted to lean against the couch, a sketchbook resting against his thigh as he goes through the pages, filling them with what he'd call random doodles. The messy scenery of his living room. Whatever scene he caught with the corner of his eye on the tv. Bucky's profile as he watches a rerun of _The Great American Baking Show,_ suddenly interested. Bucky's prosthetic hand, idly holding the empty pink mug. Bucky's scruffy chin, resting in his flesh hand.

He doesn't realize it as his entire page gets filled by all the small parts of Bucky, now closer than ever—just a stretch of a single arm away—so very reminiscent of all the sketches he has done in hiding over the last few weeks. He also doesn't realize it when Bucky turns in his direction, commercials playing in the background, and looks right at the notebook, out in the open and with no hopes for Steve to make any excuses about it.

"You make it a habit to commemorate all your guests in that thing?"

It's like somebody snapped fingers right in front of Steve's eyes, his hand halting in the midst of adding some pointless shading to a drawing that definitely doesn't need any more of it. He's ready to begin an entire convoluted apology, excusing himself and what he has done, but then – then he realizes that Bucky did not sound angry. Or annoyed. It felt like curiosity, more than anything, and a bit of humor too, maybe, if Steve squinted.

"Not all of them," he tries, carefully, like he's afraid to say the wrong thing. He is, probably – after all, the past few weeks his life has been all about the overwhelming guilt and, more recently, fear related to painting Bucky in secret and the reveal of it.

When he gathers enough courage to tilt his head back and look at Bucky, he sees the same face, with the same worry as two or so hours ago, but it's different somehow. More relaxed. More at ease. And most of all – not at all offended or displeased.

"Is my nose really _that_ big?" Bucky adds, nodding towards the sketch of his face's profile.

Steve looks between the drawing and the man's face, and shrugs lightly, "I think it's an alright nose. Fits your face just fine."

Bucky laughs – _actually_ laughs, a short breathy sound, and turns back towards the tv, the show back on after the commercials break.

It's the first time that Steve thinks, with what he sadly recognizes as a particularly naive hope, that maybe Bucky won't take it all as bad as he has believed he will this whole time. Maybe he'll be okay with the painting. Maybe he'll understand his mother's point of view and Steve's reasoning behind agreeing to the commission and not coming clean about it.

Maybe.

*

He doesn't need to wait long to find out.

Time passes without either of them really noticing it, Steve eventually abandoning his sketchbook and pulling himself on the couch too, nestling in the other end of it and squeezing his legs next to Bucky's, feet pressing in the tight space between the other's thighs and the back cushions. Bucky says something about it being late and needing to leave, to which Steve shushes him and points out that another episode of the tv show will start in a moment, and that seems to be enough to placate Bucky into staying. It's calm, easy and comforting in a way that Steve didn't realize he needed.

When he wakes up it has to be much later, his entire body feeling like he's taken a nap that was supposed to be just half an hour and accidentally ended up being three. The dim lights of his apartment are still on, he's covered with a blanket an alone, the other end of the couch empty, save for the decorative pillows. It's so eerily quiet that he figures Bucky must've left at some point, and all at once, Steve feels like an absolutely terrible host—except he notices Bucky's jacket is still there, thrown over the back of the couch, his shoes right where he kicked them off near the entrance door.

"Bucky?"

There's no answer and there's some anxiety brewing at the back of Steve's mind as he untangles himself from the soft blanket, chills running all over his body when it's hit with the cold air of the night. He pads across his apartment carefully, slowly, as if there's a possibility of scaring Bucky away; he looks into the empty kitchen, takes a glance into the bathroom, where the light is on but the door is open, until there really isn't any other option, the only place left being his own bedroom. The very same bedroom where he, completely stupidly and carelessly, left all his work right in sight, not really expecting any guests on Thursday night, of all days.

As his feet stop in the bedroom's door, so does his heart, both upon seeing Bucky sitting there, right at the very edge of his bed, and looking at the unfinished portrait of him self—or what appear to be him, anyway.

Steve can't see his face, the expression that's there, but just his silence, his posture—bent a little forward, shoulders curled and hands as if holding one another, tense—is already enough. All the fears and worries that have been circling Steve's mind for weeks now are reaching their peak, clustering together right at the forefront of his consciousness and making him blind and deaf to anything that isn't Bucky Bucky _Bucky_.

"Bucky."

When he steps closer, slowly, _so slowly,_ and finally gets to _look_ at him, it's a difficult sight. There is more emotion on Bucky's face than Steve has ever seen, one chasing after another, as if his heart and mind is not quite sure what he really feels. How long has he been sitting here, circling through them all and stuck in whatever emotional limbo he seems to be?

Steve glances at the painting, and he can't quite help himself but cringe at how absolutely imperfect it is, not blended enough, any sort of background barely visible, unwanted bristle texture here and there. But it's not at all what Bucky sees there, he's sure; what he sees must be his own reflection of the past – of times long gone, of days he can never go back to and state of things he won't ever live through again. No matter how hard Steve tries though, how much he thinks about it and attempts to logically dissect it, he can never fully imagine what has to go through Bucky's head upon being confronted with all of it, what kind of emotional response does it invoke within him.

He's scared to ask, too.

"Your parents commissioned me for a portrait of you," he says instead of asking, because he's always found action, no matter how stupid, easier than waiting and submitting himself to the blow that may come from the other side. For a moment, he struggles how to put it all in words, because the painting very obviously isn't _Bucky_ —not the real one, sitting right here, anyway. The first instinct is to say _the best version of you,_ but this isn't true, Steve knows it's not; he may have not known the Bucky from before all the injury and trauma, but he knows this one enough to know he's still the same good, funny, skilled person that he used to be. _The past you_ is an another idea, but it feels wrong too, as if he'd be saying that there's more than one Bucky, that he can never be what he used to be before, and Steve finds that to be just cruel and simply untrue.

"The you they'd like to remember, I think," he ends up saying—hesitant, quiet, a little defeated. There is no good way to put this.

The way Bucky doesn't say or do anything or even move, for a long while after that, scares Steve even more, but in retrospective, perhaps it's good. Perhaps it's better than what actually comes next, after what feels like forever of both of them staring at the painting, barely visible in whatever bits of light manage to sneak through inside through the open bedroom door.

Because when Bucky finally speaks up, his voice sounds like he's been screaming internally for this whole time, rough and weary and choked up, and matching all the contradicting emotions of surprise, sadness, grief and betrayal on his face.

"I hate it."

These three little words, short and straightforward, are so loaded and heavy that they feel like a slap to Steve's face. Even as opinionated and strong-minded as Steve is, he's rarely using the word, finding _hate_ to be so intense and negative and _final_ that he's never really found a time and place for it in his life. He's not quite sure what he's supposed to do with it, when he's now faced with it, so open right in front of it. What does Bucky hate exactly? Does he hate the painting? Does he hate what it presents?

Does he hate Steve?

But when Steve looks at him, Bucky has eyes only for the painting, hyper focused on what Steve feels like are the eyes, the hand, all the places where it deviates from the reality that Bucky must've tried really hard to get used to and make peace with for over a year. Suddenly, it strikes Steve just what it must really mean to him, how this erasure of his pain and experiences also negates all the efforts he has put into getting through it. How it diminishes it and makes it feel unimportant – like no matter what he'd do, it'll never be good enough.

It makes Steve, for the first time in his life, hate it too.

In what feels like a split second decision, Steve reaches out to his small table and picks up a crumpled cotton rag that has probably served him for way too long at this point, stained with various colors of paint that no amount of detergent would be able to remove. With a quick, efficient movements, he pours liquid from one of the bottles – always keeping it capped and stored in a safe distance from his actual work area – the unmistakable, sharp smell of turpentine hitting his nostrils nearly instantly. He hands it to Bucky, arm extending towards him and a terrifying anticipation nipping at the back of his neck, fearing the moment Bucky looks at him. Fearing it might be hatred he sees in these eyes when they meet his, after all.

There is no hatred. There is just sadness, so deep and vast that Steve thinks he could easily drown in if he only allowed himself to. Wordlessly, Steve urges Bucky to take the cloth, and it seems wholly meaningful when it's the prosthetic hand that reaches out to it, the silver chrome of the arm's plates shifting and gleaming in the dim night light. Fingers curl in the cotton and Steve can feel them, right next to his own, their initial coldness and gradual warming up, like a real hand would.

"You can get rid of it," Steve says, gently, allowing his hand fleetingly embrace Bucky's as he lets go of the rag, leaving the choice up to him. It was wrong of everyone – the careless people who made an assault on so many lives, Bucky's parents who believe they know better what he needs than himself, Steve who went with what he felt would be the best to everyone, as opposed to what is the best for the person who stands in the whole center of it all – to make decisions for Bucky, to conclude what his life should look like, how he should cope with it, how should he present himself to the world. It is only right to put the control back into his hands. To allow him to feel like he, and only he, is in charge of his own life.

"Do it," he encourages, taking a step back and removing himself as the last remaining obstacle.

There's no dramatic sound when Bucky stands up from the bed and presses the cotton against the canvas in one decisive movement that is way more fluid than one may think it would be for someone with a prosthetic arm. His jaw is clenched, like it takes a lot out of him, but the trouble is more mental, enclosed within whatever thoughts hide behind that hurt but determined gaze. The cloth hits the fictional image of who some people may want to be James Barnes—but is not, not really—right in the face, still a little awkward and unfinished. As Bucky rubs it in, half-angry and half-resigned, as if he has to muster the very last of his strength to do it, Steve knows what's happening beneath the cotton – the paint dissolving and mixing together, half of it soaked in the material and the other smeared across the canvas beyond recognition. There is no salvaging it, weeks worth of work destroyed, and while it hurts to see it, Steve also knows it's the right thing to happen, that this painting and Steve himself deserve it. That Bucky deserves it.

If Steve had to liken Bucky to something right now, it'd probably be a storm, brewing slowly and steadily, up until it reaches its strongest point, flooding over the edges of its own capacity. The longer he wields this power to erase this fabricated image of himself, the more he seems to lose himself in it, maybe not sure what to do with it – or maybe quite the opposite, knowing it all too well and trying to milk it while he can. He drags the cotton over this small patch of canvas again and again _and again,_ until Steve is quite sure there's not much there left at all, and at some point he notices there's some inconsistency and violence to Bucky's movements, so odd and uncharacteristic, for all the calmness and kindness Bucky demonstrates with his whole being on a daily basis.

It makes Steve torn between stopping and encouraging him, lost at what it is that he may need the most. In the end, when Bucky uses a bit too much strength, the easel gets knocked over, making the cloth drag across the falling painting and leave an arched smudge all the way throughto the arm that should not be there at all. Everything crashes down, a pile of wood, canvas, brushes and tins of paint, and after a brief commotion, the sound piercingly loud in the silence of the night, everything seems to still.

Everything, but Bucky – somehow shuddering, as if unable to contain the emotion that has woken up inside of him, maybe held back and suppressed for too long. His breathing is fast and hard, and his eyes wider than anyone might expect them to be in the middle of the night, slightly panicked in the way they look at the mess at his feet, like he can't quite comprehend what has happened, what he did.

And oh, this is bad. This is really bad, Steve thinks, because he somehow doesn't believe they're close enough for him to help with any kind of a panic or anxiety attack, and yet he's the only one around, the only who _can_ help at all.

"Bucky," he calls out for what feels like a hundredth time tonight, "Bucky, it's okay. This is fine. It's gone," he tries to reassure, softly, slowly stepping closer to him, approaching in a way that'll ensure Bucky sees him coming and can back out in time.

He doesn't. He looks to Steve like he expects to see some answers there, some explanations that will give it all sense, and Steve has no idea if he is capable of offering anything like that – but he sure as hell can try.

When he reaches out for Bucky, it's a bit strange and would probably feel silly in any other situation, Steve's body so much slighter than Bucky's, so frail and weak in comparison. His skinny arms envelop him as best as they can, careful at first, as if testing the waters, but when Bucky leans into him willingly, the hold tightens, bodies pressing together in what turns out to be an oddly unexpected balance. And then they go down down _down_ , Bucky feeling surprisingly small, enveloped in Steve's embrace, heaving all dry and ragged against Steve's shoulder. It takes a long while for him to calm down, for his breathing to slow and even out, and when Steve wants to let go, surprisingly, it's Bucky who pulls him back in, leaning more of his weight against him, notready to face him yet and wordlessly seeking more of the offered comfort.

Steve gives it to him, not questioning, not rushing, allowing him all the time in the world he needs.

*

"Was it mother's idea?" Bucky asks, what feels like hours later. In reality, it's still completely dark and Steve presumes no longer than an hour has passed.

"Yeah, I think so. I believe she thought this would help you, too," he says, trying to be as diplomatic as possible, figuring that taking sides and igniting a family drama is very far down the list of things he'd like to do.

Bucky sneers at that, an ugly sound that Steve hasn't heard from him before. It scares him a bit, he realizes, how little does he know about Bucky – and how, despite it, attached he feels to him. "What, rubbing in my face what a perfect son I will never manage to be again?"

As Bucky leans back, it's just enough to look at Steve, his face all red and even more tired looking than before, when he stood at Steve's doorstep. They both rest their heads on the bed's mattress, staying close, neither quite ready to part just yet. For a long while, Bucky looks at him like he considers something, some options weighing in his head.

"People keep doing this," he begins, licking his dry lips in a quick motion. He must be dehydrated, Steve thinks, after that entire emotional rollercoaster and a mild hyperventilation episode. "Keep saying how if only enough time passes, if only I try hard enough, things will go back to normal. I'll be able to live how I used to then, be my old self, lead my normal life."

It's clear in the way he says it how it hurts him, talking around a bile of bitterness in his throat that must be hard to swallow. Without thinking much—a common theme for Steve around Bucky, it seems—he shifts his hand a bit, a single movement enough to press it against Bucky's one, the metal warm to the touch now, after sharing their bodies' heat for quite a while. Bucky doesn't take it away, instead letting him feel around it, trace the fingers, the tiniest of gaps between the plates. 

"There's no going back though. Things will never be the same, I won't be. And it fucking sucks, for me more than anyone else, but I'm still trying. To move on, figure out new ways of doing things, of living," Steve clasps his hand with Bucky's, finding the way the metal is unyielding against the grasp strangely comforting. He can only hope it feels that way to Bucky, too. "I wish they all supported me in that and tried to move on too, instead of staying in the past and desperately seeking the things that are long gone. It makes me feel— _inadequate_. Like I'll never be enough again. Like no matter what I do, it's not even worth trying, because it's not going to grow my arm back and erase the goddamn scars."

It's difficult to hear it and Steve can only imagine how hard it is to actually _say_ it. He wonders, briefly, if he ever told this his parents, if he tried to make them understand. If he'd be willing to, through all their stubborn, idealistic denial.

"You're enough as you are, Bucky. And as long as you're confident in it, in yourself, it's enough," Steve says, fully meaning every word and not able to imagine how anyone could, seeing and knowing what Steve knows, not to.

Bucky laughs, a short, quiet, sad sort of rasp. "Not everybody is as strong and independent as you, Steve. Some people need other people, too. Some people can't just do it all on their own."

"You're not alone."

In retrospect, neither of them will ever be sure who gets there first, lips kissing like they're starved for something only physical comfort can satisfy, hands grasping and clutching all eager and desperate and not ashamed to show it. Steve takes everything Bucky is willing to give, learning all the new things that he wouldn't even dream about all these weeks of observing him and jotting down every little detail in his memory.

There are sounds now, a whole range of them, from small gasps when Steve's teeth pull onto his skin, through low, throaty moans that Steve sucks out of him, lips squeezed tightly around the head of his cock, to huffs of extortion mixed with arousal, accompanying the deep, unhurried thrusts, paced as if they have all the time in the world for this.

There are scents and tastes: the salt on his tongue as he glides it over the skin, the faint aroma of long since gone coffee clinging to Bucky's palate, the spice of Bucky's cologne in his nostrils as he sinks down onto his lap, clutching at the shoulders, nose pressing against his neck.

There are textures and feelings, like when the entire length of Bucky's prosthetic wraps around Steve's body and he can sense the platings move, adjust, how there may be no flesh and muscle there, and yet he can still feel it tense up as he uses more strength to pull him up or press him down into the bed's mattress. Or when they're both sated and spent, drowning in the cathartic feeling that pulls both of them in, Steve spread half on top of Bucky and his hand feeling the uneven, scarred skin of his entire left side. His fingers trace them instinctively, the small bumps and valleys of flesh that feels so delicate to the touch, that had to go through so much pain as it changed into what it is now. Bucky lets him, calm and quiet and a little like he's not there temporarily, stuck somewhere in his head, way beyond Steve's reach.

Steve understands it. When he pulls some of the blankets up, careless of their clothes, some of them falling to the floor in the process, covering both of them, he also runs a gentle hand through Bucky's hair in a simple caressing motion. When he briefly covers his eyes with it, he feels his eyelids close obediently underneath, eyelashes fluttering against the sensitive skin of his palm.

*

Waking up, Steve half-expects to be alone. He can feel that the sun is up even before he opens his eyes, the brightness seeping through the lids' thin skin and making it impossible to ignore it for too long even for someone as stubborn as him.

It's only when he rolls onto his back that he hears a sound – a very quiet rustle of some paper, very close to his ear. It makes him blink his eyes open and immediately turn in the sound's direction, finding it rather surreal to see Bucky, still as naked as he has left him, lying right there and looking through what seems to be—an entire series of sketches of himself.

He really needs to get into the habit of cleaning up after finishing his work and putting his things away, he thinks with the smallest of groans to escape his throat.

It amuses Bucky visibly, the corner of his lips on Steve's side twitching upwards in a crooked smile. What a good looking bastard, Steve notes, rubbing at his eye with a hand that is still stained with coal, which probably means he just gave himself some sort of a fake black eye. Lovely.

"Found them half-hidden under the pillow," Bucky says after a while, taking his time with every next sheet, even though Steve _knows_ it's nothing special to look at. "Did you just draw me in secret and then slept with the drawing-me in bed?" He asks, so very obviously teasing, and if not for the fact that it's a good sign for him, both of them, then Steve would probably be a little annoyed.

"Sure. I'm that desperate," he agrees just to spite him, kicking his legs a bit and realizing that he has something weird tangled all around them. Oh, right—their clothes. He sits up, reaching out to pull them out from under the blankets, a shirt and a pair of underwear, neither of which really looking like something they'd want to wear anymore.

"I like these more than the painting," comes a while later, Bucky on what feels like a tenth or so page, and Steve picking up the ones he sets aside and idly, with some pencil found on the other end of the bed, sketching new things in the still blank spots of them.

"Yeah, me too. Even if sketching these always had me on the verge of having a heart attack, sneaking around to squeeze these few lines in, in between catching a glance of you here and there," Steve admits, feeling somewhat sentimental thinking about it, even if it was just weeks ago.

They both enjoy the piece and quiet of this morning, tangled in the same sheets, mentally still coming down from the exhaustion of the night prior. Bucky keeps going through more of Steve's works, pointed to some sketchbooks hidden in the top drawer of the bedside table, and while Steve knows he's not a particularly passionate art lover, he still seems to be interested enough, possibly learning more about Steve, observing the world as Steve sees and draws it.

Steve, as usual in these idle moments, resorts to putting his mind onto the paper, thoughts steered into one direction only. It's hard to stop himself when he isn't even fully aware of where his subconscious takes him, pencil tracing the line of Bucky's jawline, neck, shoulder and arm. It's the first time he sees the extent of the damage that has been done to his body in daylight, and he finds it intriguing how it translates onto the paper, all the unevenness, and ridges around the top of the prosthetic, and patterns that what looks to be burn marks created on his chest and waist. It's beautiful, Steve decides shortly, how the scars seem to split him in half, joined in the middle to create the Bucky that Steve has grown to know today.

It takes a moment for Steve to realize Bucky abandoned the sketchbook in his hands and looks back at him instead, like he tries to read into him.

"Is this fine?" Steve asks, the end of the pencil tapping against half-filled page.

"Go on."

*

(When Steve tells Mrs Barnes—as respectfully as he can, which isn't perfect by no means but could be so much worse too—that he can only complete half of the commission, she's not very pleased and for the next week it takes Steve to finish the series of paintings featuring the 222 Guyon Ave house, their relations are much less pleasant than before.

In a way, it's a relief to Steve, as it means he doesn't need to watch his every word and every expression on his face, feeling very strongly about everything that Bucky has confided him with and being very tempted to lash out on everyone who pushed him into the spiral of low self-confidence, loneliness and fear of not being good enough – no matter their true intentions.

It's only a few months later, as him and Bucky are holed up inside of his apartment in the middle of a snowstorm, that the idea of a portrait, abandoned entirely when Steve dumped the half-destroyed painting in the trash, comes up again.

"Steve," Bucky calls from his end of the couch, nudging his thigh with a socked foot. Steve looks up at him from the tablet he holds, busy with trying to figure out the tech and maybe finally join the twenty-first century of art-making.

"How about we finally make mother happy and give her my portrait?"

Steve tilts his head slightly in a questioning manner, unsure whether he understands Bucky well. They've talked about it briefly, how maybe one day they could give it a try again, when Bucky is more comfortable in his skin again and his family is ready to accept him as he is, not how he used to be.

"Paint me, Steve.")

[by munin_and_hugin@Twitter, Egg tempera, oil, and silver leaf on panel. 12”x12”]

[moodboards by Sporadic_fics@Twitter]

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Portrait Of A Man In Chrome (ART)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28180674) by [Sporadic_fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sporadic_fics/pseuds/Sporadic_fics)




End file.
